


No Ship Should Go Down Without Her Captain

by icebucky



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Bones McCoy - Freeform, Don't be dead, Feels, Gen, Sadness, damn it jim, sorry for this, you're dead Jim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 19:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icebucky/pseuds/icebucky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bones McCoy was a doctor, damn it, and not a miracle worker, but sometimes he just longed to be both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Ship Should Go Down Without Her Captain

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in the med bay after Scotty and Spock bring Jim in after he makes the trek through the warp core. Bones' POV. Feels, sadness, this is the part where I cried in Into Darkness. Brace yourself, we're crossing the final frontier.

Jim Kirk, Bones had decided, was completely, utterly, undeniably, certifiably insane.

He was also very dead.

Something inside of Bones just couldn't accept it. This man, his captain, his friend, was  _James Tiberius Kirk._ He'd make a planet move out of his way if it had pissed him off.

But as he lay on a table in the Enterprise's medical bay, all vitals gone, no pulse, respiration or brain function, a piece of Bones' hard shell started to crumble.

Jim had been Bones' first friend at Starfleet. He'd let Bones bitch about his ex and how he never got to see his daughter, simultaneously cheering him up by making an ass out of himself for girls.  _Every time_ , Bones thought ruefully,  _every damn time._

Glancing down, Bones stared at Jim's face, something inside of him shaking like a little kid afraid of the dark. Even when Jim had been injured, tired, angry, or even sarcastic, the expression on his face was something priceless, something inexplicable but so full of emotion and life that he just seemed to have too much energy and charisma to die.

To die.

Jim Kirk, Bones decided, was too much to die.

 _Damn it,_ Bones thought, collapsing at his desk, elbows slamming hard into his surface next to that failed experiment with that dead tribble.  _I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker._

Bones covered his face with his hands, wishing that today had never happened, wishing that he could somehow fix this crazy-ass shit that had gone down on the Enterprise, wishing that he was the miracle worker that people expected him to be. It was his prerogative as CMO to do everything he could to save his patients.

But it was also his prerogative as CMO to call the time of the patient's death.

He couldn't do that.

Darkness was all he saw. His eyes were shut and his hands shielded him from the world even further. His ears had tuned out much of the chatter that was floating around the medical bay, and he was floating in a horrifying, blessed sea of silence.

There was a trilling, cooing, chirping sound to his right.

Bones shot out of his moment of silent grief and stared at the tribble that sat on the desk next to him.  _Oh, my God,_ he thought, staring at it in wonder.  _It's alive._

He checked the readings, the blood test, the tribble itself, grabbing it and holding it and ensuring that it was just as annoying as it had been the last time it was alive.

It was.

"Holy shit," he muttered under his breath, and his head snapped around to give the med crew orders. "Get the captain in a cryotube! It's the only way to preserve his higher brain functions. McCoy to the bridge," he said, pressing a comlink. He noticed that his hands were shaking from the excitement.

"Go ahead," came the clear voice of Nyota Uhura. She was still running communications, he was relieved to hear. At least there was some order still on this starship.

"I need to get a message to Commander Spock. There's a way we can save Jim, but I need Khan alive."

The bustling in the medical bay suddenly halted as Uhura replied, "I'll get right on it." It wasn't exactly a satisfactory answer, but there was a recognizable chirp as she ended the comlink.

They all turned to look at Bones, feeling secure enough to do so given that Jim was safely in the cryotube. "Yeah. We can save him," Bones croaked, feeling like he was just going to disappoint the crew.

The energy in the medical bay suddenly became electric, and Bones just hoped and prayed to whatever God may exist that, please, just this once, let him be a miracle worker.


End file.
